Why Self-Host? A lot of people tend to stray away from self-hosting and look for convenient deployment solutions with automated processes, Git integration, a simple user interface, etc. However, they can sometimes get hit with a surprise serverless bill from their cloud provider running over 4 digits. Self-Hosting allows you to have full control over your apps and services. It teaches you how to run things privately, setting up things like nginx, systemd services, networking and more. It is also cost efficient since you only have to pay for the server cost. While, I enjoy not worrying about huge bills from cloud providers, I still miss having the convenience these hosting platforms provided. With some investigation, I came across Coolify.

A Fallen Friend My fellow best friend Steve Le passed away on October 16, 2024. I don’t want to go into details of his passing but he was my best friend, someone I knew for 10 years. We met playing Xbox during the 2012-2013 era. We mostly played games online and called for hours because I moved away to another state. We always supported each other’s goals and understood each other at a deep level. We made great memories going skydiving, shooting, playing videogames, and hanging out with our crew. His passing was so sudden and tragic. I desired to honor his memory in any way I knew how. Thus I created the Steve AI Discord Bot.

Electric Skating as a Beginner Skater I have never properly skated on a normal skateboard. My body won’t let me attempt dangerous things where I am not in complete control. That’s where the electric board controller comes in. With this controller, I’ll be able to know the exact speed I am moving at and more importantly, stop when I have to. The only thing I would have to worry about is balance and turning. On the contrary, most skaters would just recommend getting a normal board so you can build confidence, but it wasn’t entirely my goal to be a real skater. I did my research and found an entry level electric board that wasn’t too pricey and didn’t have all the fancy features. I opted for the Backfire G2 Black since it was on sale and looked sleek while being aimed at beginners.